Mark Bell's Power Project - The 7 Capacities You NEED Beyond Muscle to Stay Strong for Life || MBPP Ep. 1112

Episode Date: November 12, 2024

In Episode 1112 ,Mark Bell, Nsima Inyang, and Andrew Zaragoza talk about the capacities you need for longevity and how it goes beyond more than "just muscle".   Official Power Project Website: https://powerproject.live Join The Power Project Discord: https://discord.gg/yYzthQX5qN Subscribe to the Power Project Clips Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UC5Df31rlDXm0EJAcKsq1SUw   Special perks for our listeners below!   🥜 Protect Your Nuts With Organic Underwear 🥜 ➢https://nadsunder.com/ Use code: POWERPROJECT to save 15% off your order!   🍆  Natural Sexual Performance Booster 🍆 ➢https://usejoymode.com/discount/POWERPROJECT Use code: POWERPROJECT to save 20% off your order!   🚨 The Best Red Light Therapy Devices and Blue Blocking Glasses On The Market! 😎 ➢https://emr-tek.com/ Use code: POWERPROJECT to save 20% off your order!   👟 BEST LOOKING AND FUNCTIONING BAREFOOT SHOES 🦶 ➢https://vivobarefoot.com/powerproject Code: POWERPRO25 for   🥩 HIGH QUALITY PROTEIN! 🍖 ➢ https://goodlifeproteins.com/ Code POWER to save 20% off site wide, or code POWERPROJECT to save an additional 5% off your Build a Box Subscription!   🩸 Get your BLOODWORK Done! 🩸 ➢ https://marekhealth.com/PowerProject to receive 10% off our Panel, Check Up Panel or any custom panel, and use code POWERPROJECT for 10% off any lab!   Sleep Better and TAPE YOUR MOUTH (Comfortable Mouth Tape) 🤐 ➢ https://hostagetape.com/powerproject to receive a year supply of Hostage Tape and Nose Strips for less than $1 a night!   🥶 The Best Cold Plunge Money Can Buy 🥶 ➢ https://thecoldplunge.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save $150!!   Self Explanatory 🍆 ➢ Enlarging Pumps (This really works): https://bit.ly/powerproject1 Pumps explained:      ➢ https://withinyoubrand.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off supplements!   ➢ https://markbellslingshot.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off all gear and apparel!   Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast ➢ https://www.PowerProject.live ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast ➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject   FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢https://www.tiktok.com/@marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell   Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ Become a Stronger Human - https://thestrongerhuman.store ➢ UNTAPPED Program - https://shor.by/JoinUNTAPPED ➢YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/NsimaInyang ➢Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/?hl=en ➢TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@nsimayinyang?lang=en   Follow Andrew Zaragoza ➢ Podcast Courses and Free Guides: https://pursuepodcasting.com/iamandrewz ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamandrewz/ ➢ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@iamandrewz   #PowerProject #Podcast #MarkBell #FitnessPodcast #markbellspowerproject

Maybe you get rid of some lifting in order to bring in some training so that you have some other skills, some other capacities, because I think that those other capacities will serve you really well as you age. What are all the things that you see people lack when they're older? People don't tend to be as coordinated. People don't tend to be as springy. They don't tend to move fast. Sometimes when you just go down a singular path and you're honed in and focused on that,

we start to lose some of those other capacities. You start to leave some of those behind. Can somebody go all in on one thing and then kind of unwind themselves later? But it's probably in your best interest to maintain a level of ability to access those movement capacities. There might be some people that might put a lot

into their lifting and then they might be so damaged when they come out the other side, if they didn't pay attention to these things. If you guys have been enjoying the content we've been bringing here on The Power Project, consider leaving us a review on Spotify and Apple. We've had podcasts with people from Functional Patterns, to Ben Patrick, to Jack Cruz, who roasted us on air,

but we did that for you, to bring you some of the best information in fitness. We're learning along with you and leaving a review with how you dig the podcast is really gonna be something that helps the podcast move forward. So if you can leave us a review there and enjoy the rest of the show. Should I use this towel?

And Seema is gonna be eating on the show here today. I apologize everybody. I'll try not to keep my mouth on the mic. But what are you cracking open there? Hold on, let me get you over here. Oh, look at that. There you go. I want you getting fish sauce all over your...

It's very oily. Please don't get it on the mic. He's eating some cod liver, which is really high in vitamin A and vitamin D, high in essential fats, omega-3s rather. You just, it's buttery. Yeah, it's buttery, it's so good. It's like weird though. It is kind of almost like you're chewing on butter.

Right? You eat this every day? I do, I eat it pretty often. I eat sardines every day. I feel like this is something I'll probably have five days a week. This is good. It's a secret to my strength. I've been having that since I was five years old.

Really? I'm kidding. Oh. I did, yeah, I gave some to Thomas DeLauer, like on his show. And then the cameraman was like, give me some. And he liked it too. He was like, holy shit.

Dude, this is so good. Yeah, they're surprisingly good. I know that like cod liver is like a supplement, you know, cod liver oil. People talk about it all the time. And then some people are like, you can get, you know, like, holy shit. Dude, this is so good. They're surprisingly good. I know that like cod liver is like a supplement, cod liver oil, people talk about it all the time. And then some people are like, you can get vitamin A or vitamin D overload because it is really high in that.

I don't know why, but there's like no food. There's like hardly any food that has high vitamin A and high vitamin D like that, except for that. Well, I mean, I'd assume if you had like one pack of this every few days, you're not gonna have vitamin A or D over that. No, no. And it's fat soluble, so that's all you would need.

You wouldn't have to have it every day. And you can go over to markbell.com. I got my cod liver oil company. Well, I'd imagine that with the vitamins in that form, though, kind of like fruits and vegetables, right? Like you're gonna get some stuff that's considered bad, but because of the delivery system and what it's combined with, it's not overload. You weren't born yesterday, Andrew.

I wasn't. You fucking nailed it. That's 100%. This with dried mangoes. Same time, just like the dried mango and beef jerking. Dried mango and cod liver in your mouth. Dried mango with anything is gonna be good, but I... Yeah, I can see. He's free basing over here.

But this is the thing, I know how you like, you weren't the biggest fan of sardines, and maybe you might not be the biggest fan of this if you eat it alone, but if you have this in your mouth, and then you pull it along. Or instead of eating it alone, if you ate it with us. Boom. This is a, no, this is a fucking party, man. Yeah, so what are you doing with these dried mangoes? He'd be eating it alone if he ate it with us. Boom. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

This is a, mm, that's a fuckin' party, man. Yeah, so what are you doing with these dried mangoes? Dried mangoes and you're on a strict dried mango and Biltong diet? He's like, ride a twoey over here. This has become my favorite snack. You actually mentioned, after Mr. Kabliska, CJ Kabliska, not Kabolski, like I called him. CJ Kabliska. Movement exploration.iska, not Kabulski like I called him.

Movement exploration. Movement exploration, he came out on the show, he asked our guy Eric for some dried mangoes. I've never had dried mangoes, I tried them, they were amazing. What a request, by the way. Right? What a little prick. Might have some dried mangoes.

Eric's like, hey, you want anything? He's thinking like coffee, water. I'd like some dried mangoes, please. Well, you know, Stefan came here and Stefan wanted some grass fed meat. Oh, that's great. So our guests seem to have some really specific and it's good.

They want healthy stuff. I remember Ben Greenfield for the win with the mackerel. Smokey's like, hey man, I can get you something. He's thinking like a burrito, a taco, like, and remember like at that West Sack location, there was nothing out there. It's like a food desert kind of. There's not a shit out there.

And then, yeah, Ben is like, and Ben, you know, kind of has that voice too. He's got the ultimate white guy voice. I'll have some mackerel. Ben, you're my boy, you know that. Just fuck around. He really does though. He Ben, you're my boy, you know that. Just fucking around. He really does though. He really has that voice where just,

you know, I mean, just talk like this for now. That's good, you've been practicing. Yeah, just channeling it. That's amazing, now you can fit in. You can use that on your YouTube. Oh fuck. You guys been following the World Series at all? Just the-

Been checking it out at all? Just the Ice cube thing. Nope. Yeah. The Yankees are down three zip. I don't really watch baseball that much, but you know, sometimes the bigger games come on and I'm like, yeah, this is pretty good. I just have a good appreciation for sports in general.

I just like to watch, um, shit, I'll watch tennis, you know, when Wimbledon's on and some of that stuff. I don't know anything about it. You call it Wimbledon. I know. That's how much she does it now. Yeah. See? Exactly. So I don't know anything about it. You call her Wimbledon. I know. I probably messed it up. That's how much she doesn't know. Yeah, see, exactly.

So I don't know what I'm talking about. I don't know what love and all this different stuff. I don't know what the hell's going on when I'm watching it, but I like it. I'm like, this is fucking cool. That was a double joke you mentioned. You're like, I don't even know what love is, but no, you actually mentioned the love and tennis.

I don't know. Yeah, that was good. That was really good. That was creative. That was deep. Yeah, I haven't been paying attention. The only thing I was just like joking with you guys, like there's still a little bit of a fan left in me somewhere deep down in there because I look at the Dodgers doing really well and it kind of just upsets me

as a former like really good, like big time Giants fan to see that. Because like the rivalry there was so big, but it's like, it's whatever. You know, I don't care. Yeah. Yeah. And just, uh, you know, football is kind of heating up and the chiefs, you know, are still undefeated. And I went to, I went to the 49ers chiefs game and, um, you know, the chiefs, they did great. They, they kicked the crap out of the 49ers and, uh, you know, some of the drunk fans that were next to us, cause we were actually on the chief sidelines or chief side rather. And some of the drunk 49er fans were like, you guys are cheating. You're paying off the refs and like, you know, all this stupid stuff.

It's like, now's not the time, you know, we're kind of getting killed. And this, this story in this game had nothing to do with the refs. They just got their asses kicked. It was really bad. Yeah, it was. It was dis bad. Yeah, it was. It was disheartening. I'm just glad that they beat the Cowboys.

After anything else that happens this year, it's just gonna be icing on the cake now because I'm not getting a bunch of shit from all my Cowboys friends and family members. And this is the beginning of the football season, correct? Like, yeah, it's still the beginning. I was like week seven, week eight is coming up soon. So yeah, starting to get to the halfway point.

That's interesting. So when baseball's, because World Series is the end of the season for baseball, football's like starting to run up. No, so sports, ah, this makes a lot of sense. Yeah, and then football will be over with, and like just about everything's kind of over with, but I guess basketball picks up.

But then there's like a lull, because then there's like basketball's over, football and baseball are sort of over, and then you're just like, ah, yeah, we're heading into like the prime like sports season because basketball and football are going to both be going at the same time. And then you still have the, you know, the end of baseball. So it's like, there's always something to watch right now. Always.

You guys watch, either you guys watching teacup? Teacup. What's teacup? On, I think it's on Netflix I don't know. It's on one of those streaming things like dogs. It's uh, like a horror flick. Oh, no, I don't watch that shit Oh, it's cool. I need to look it up. You'd like it. Yeah, you definitely like it. What's it about? I can't really tell you what it's about cuz I'll mess everything up. I think it's just uh, yeah, it's kind of scary I just discovered something real quick from this cod liver. Oh, if you take some of the mango

Like all right, you take some of the mango And then you get I'm gonna get this information on any other fucking show by the way Hey, the college by a power project exclusive bodybuilder black belt and jujitsu Thank you, but the cod liver oil is apparently good for you You said vitamin A and vitamin D you dip the. But the cod liver oil is apparently good for you. You said vitamin A and vitamin D. You dip the mango in the cod liver at the end. The dried mango in the cod liver. It actually tastes amazing. Don't have to waste the cod liver. I mean the cod liver oil and you're getting the fruit.

It's fucking awesome. Seema's gonna be like, I just rubbed the cod liver oil on my lips. It's great. Keeps everything smooth. And she'll be like, oh, that's not, that's not really good. Like rubbing it on your mustache. They know. Somebody had talked about like the, I think the sardines getting like cooked or getting messed up in the tin cans or anything. You hear anything?

Oh, like them getting like some sort of aluminum or something like that. Yeah, I mean, look, you know, fish has, you know, heavy metals in it and stuff like that. So there's a little give and take with everything. But I think as you mentioned, I think, you know, the benefits of fish, I think, kind of outweigh some of the negatives that might happen. But some people, you know, people, they're against like farm, farmed fish, because they don't have the same omega-3 profile and stuff.

I think in general terms, when you're trying to be healthy, just make the best choice that you can from a price perspective, from a convenience perspective. But as much as I hate to say it, I think that you need to be a little less, I think as a society, it'd be helpful need to be a little less, I think as a society it'd be helpful if we're a little less scared of the microplastics and the metals. You should be conscious of it. You should know what you're buying and purchasing and

stuff like that. But yeah, I think, I think there's maybe too much made of it. I think, I think if we can get outside and have developed healthy habits, I think for me, that's what I'm trying to stick with and sharing stuff with people rather than like all these like shame on you. These are the things you shouldn't do. I can't believe you cook that in your ninja foodie that's got whatever in it, or there's phthalates and this food or that food or whatever.

I mean, I saw recently that core power was full of like, you know, microplastics, but then the guy went on to say that so are a bunch of fruits and a bunch of other things. So it's like, man, I don't know how far down that rabbit hole you start to really go. And then like organic isn't always so organic because one guy's field might be organic but the other guy's spraying it.

It's like they're right next to each other. So yeah, there's a lot that goes into that shit sometimes. Anyway, let's play this clip from Warren Samp talking about which sport is harder, basketball or football? Let's do it. When Tom Brady and Draymond Green were on LeBron's show, and Tom said,

"'Basketball is easier because you play indoors "'and nobody's trying to take your head off.' And Draymond said, "'Yeah, but you guys take a 30 minute break "'every 10 seconds.' And it was like, "'That's interesting back and forth, obviously.'" That's the biggest exaggeration you've ever heard in your damn life. And I tell people this all the time because, you know, old raspberry Doc Riverson started this for

some reason, and somebody took it to another level, talk about how many basketball players could play football. And I just do this for anybody that had this conversation. All you basketball guys out there, that's a foul. That's a foul. That's a foul. That's a foul. You're going to yet, that's a foul. I'm just getting started with your ass in a football game. When Tom Brady, he was just smacking his forearm,

everyone's seen that in basketball, right? That's the, it's very easy to pick up a foul when someone's going for a shot, right? But I think defining how hard or how difficult a sport is is just a really interesting thing because there's some sports seem like they're a little easier to pick up and just start playing. And there's other sports that are way more complicated.

Like some sports have a lot of like a lot of rules. An example of this, I think probably the best example is probably what I would consider right off the bat to be the hardest thing to do, which would be MMA. But anyone can fight, you know, anyone can kind of figure out some weird way of throwing a punch, but you know, whether it's effective or not is a totally different thing. And not everyone like knows how to fight well or knows how to defend themselves well. So I don't know, I just think it's interesting, you know,

what's harder, basketball, football. I think what Warren Sapp did right there is he immediately just went to the contact of the sport, the physicality of the sport. And mainly the contact because both sports, basketball, I would say that basketball, it's hard to say, I guess, but they're both very physically demanding. I would just say that they're equal

in terms of their physicality. Kyle Balloy, if they mark's wrong right there, argue with them. I would say basketball players are probably, they're probably in better shape, basketball players. They could probably go and run five, 10 miles. Maybe they won't like it, but they probably could. Not saying that football players can't,

but there's a lot of football players that would be like, this sucks because of the demands of the sport. So I don't know, it's interesting which one's harder. It's funny because like, this is another thing. Like if we look at another angle real quick, bodybuilders and powerlifters always have this thing about which one of their sports is harder, right? The bodybuilders would be like,

oh, bodybuilding's harder, and look at all you have to do. Empowerers would be like, you have to be super strong here, but they both have their distinct capacities that you need to have and build over time to be good at that specific sport. So, I mean, I think I said this in one of our old podcasts,

and somebody called me out on it in the comment section. I was like, yeah, actually, that was a dumbass thing I said. Because we were talking about ranking sports. We were ranking different sports, and I was like, well, you know, some of these tall basketball players, they could be a wide receiver in the NFL. Nah. Like, I mean, even though LeBron James

probably could be a wide receiver, at six foot nine or six foot eight, that's kind of getting tackled. Like, like he's a, he's a big, easy target. He'd have to do it. And then we can say, Hey, look, he did it. Yeah. You know, he's like done like a Jordan's played professional baseball.

You know, like he's, he's, he's, he's done it. He also has to do it really well, but he, he, he did it. He did it. But he also has that sweet spot in size. You know, what I was saying was like, these passball players being so big. And there's a reason why we don't see football players that are as tall as basketball players. If they... Maybe we'd see more, but we don't. Probably because it's not that much...

It's not the greatest advantage just to be super huge in football. What do you think about that? Yeah, I agree. Yeah, I agree. Like football, you start to get almost too tall. You're probably like, sometimes these guys aren't, football takes a tremendous amount of coordination as well, as does basketball. That's why it's like sort of the premier thing

when people talk about athleticism. Like, oh, let me see the guy do a layup. And you can kind of immediately tell like how athletic somebody is in certain ways. You can see a lot of their movement patterns, but also it could be someone that's never dribbled a basketball before. So then it's not really a fair assessment

because it could be the best soccer player in the world and he could dribble the ball kind of weird and like throw it up kind of awkwardly and it hits the rim and be like, well, he's not athletic. And it's like not really fair to say that that guy's not athletic. But I think, you know, if you look at people who played multiple sports, like Braun James is one of them,

he did play football in high school and he was very good at it. And there's a bunch of other people that played multiple sports, Bo Jackson, Deion Sanders. Bo Jackson was unique in the sense that he was actually very good at both of them. Yeah. Like he was gonna be a Hall of Fame running back for sure Hall of Fame in baseball

No, he wouldn't have made it in baseball, but he was a good baseball player like a very very good baseball player He made the All-Star team. I think more than once his career was ended short by an injury, but Dion I think more than once his career was ended short by an injury. But Dion, Dion wasn't a good baseball player, but he's like, you know, arguably one of the most athletic people to ever go onto a football field. But the idea of trying to think about like, which thing is harder and you brought up power lifting, you know, power lifting, power lifters and weight lifters have gone back and forth before as well. And you're like, well, weightlifting has a lot of a degree

of technicality behind it. And then it also requires you to have not just a skillset with being able to lift heavy stuff, but it also requires speed, explosiveness, which powerlifting, it helps to be explosive, but you don't necessarily have to be explosive. You can kind of be big and slow in powerlifting, it helps to be explosive, but you don't necessarily have to be explosive. You can kind of be big and slow in powerlifting, but most of the time,

most weightlifters can actually jump explosively, and they're normally fairly explosive, bouncy kind of athletes. Even the guys are huge, but it requires like a certain mobility through the wrists, through your shoulder. It's crazy. And powerlifting doesn't require that much

when it comes to that. However, in powerlifting, you have three lifts. In Olympic lifting, you only have two. So being responsible for an extra lift could potentially make it harder. Bodybuilding is interesting because you are responsible for everything all the time and then you're going to be picked apart with a microscopic lens being on stage competing against

other people. And that's kind of the only sport that I know of that has that 24 seven pressure because your diet has to be, you can make an argument and say, oh, your diet needs to be tacked too. If you're a UFC fighter or this or that, you gotta be a certain weight and so on, but not to the same degree as bodybuilding, I don't think. So bodybuilding is like, it's not necessarily like insanely hard, but it's constant.

It can be really constant and you have to be super consistent, which in the end makes it very difficult, I think. By the way, guys, we are gonna get to, and what we're gonna be getting to is like the top capacities you need for longevity, right? But I wanna mention this because this is really interesting.

You know how people always say bodybuilding is kind of like similar to a pageant? It's not really a sport. You can understand that, but bodybuilders are pretty much like, let me tell you something else. Another skill or sport or profession that requires that 24-7? Runway models. Runway models, they are always making sure that their figure is right. They got to make sure that they look right in those clothes or lack thereof when they're on the runway. And bodybuilders, when they step on stage,

when they're on their runway posing and doing their thing, well, it's the same shit. So I mean, if I think of anything, it's just the exact polar opposite because runway models are small. Yeah, I'd maybe just say that in the defense of the bodybuilder, is that they require a lot of food.

They require a lot of food and more training. So like the other person, potentially, maybe it's not a good strategy, but they usually don't eat. Right? And bodybuilders end up in the same spot. They don't eat as much as they get ready for competition, but they have to eat a certain amount a certain way. Like you can't go from being 250 that you are now

to being like for you to get down to like 215 or something wouldn't be a good move for you to get on stage, right? I'd have, yeah, no, I'd be on stage like 220, 225. But like, yeah, getting down that fast and being, no, I'd be too small. And you'd have to take your time. So it's just like, yeah, you're really, I've never done anything before in my life

where you felt like that tethered. I was so like stuck to the actual, I guess the finished product, which is the getting on stage, which kind of makes it amazing for getting in shape because you're like, I'm gonna be on stage and my reputation and everything I do is kind of on the line. So I better die at my ass off for this.

Yeah. I would say bodybuilding is closer to something like figure skating, right? You're still being judged on a performance, but you can't just like show up just depleted because then you're not going to be able to perform. Yeah. But I can see the runway thing. Does that make sense? Yeah. And I think, you know, when it comes to longevity, we're just hearing so many people, you know, talking about the importance of muscle. And I'm right there with everybody. I think that muscle is really, really important.

But it's kind of like, you know, how much muscle do we need? And when I think about these different sports, you think about some of these sports sort of mold you into looking a particular way. So if you just kind of go through different sports, start to think about it a little bit, would you want to look like an ultra runner? Maybe not, maybe that's not everyone's cup of tea. Would you want to look like a sprinter? Maybe for some people they're like, hey, that sounds kind of cool.

Or a long jumper or a high jumper or triple jumper. I mean, a lot of the people in track we've talked about on the show a bunch of times look incredible. So I think that that would be a great thing to think about is like maybe some of your, maybe you get rid of some lifting in order to bring in some training

so that you have some other skills, some other capacities because I think that those other capacities will serve you really well as you age. It's important to think about and think about as you get older. When you get older, if lifting is one of your main physical activities, well, what are all the things that you see people lack when they're older, right? People don't tend to be as coordinated. People don't tend to be as springy.

They don't tend to move fast. Remember Joel Green mentioned that one of the aspects of youth is being able to go from slow to fast without any type of inhibition, which is why he did his 10 second sprints multiple times a day with being cold because kids have that ability to just be like, yeah, and they just sprint, right?

And the thing is, is if you don't feel like you're there yet, in this episode, we're gonna get back, we're gonna talk about how you can get back to that ability and the things you can do to get the childlike ability back. Because I think putting it even more simple, when you get older and people are gonna say, oh, you're only 32, shut up, don't talk. But my goal when I get as old as I want to be

or as old as I'm gonna be is I want to have childlike abilities at old age. And I think we've seen some people that have this ability, some of the rare few that have done things that have allowed them to keep it. Most don't, which is why we don't think it's possible. But I believe that if we do, with the processes of microdosing

that we go into all the time, we can be the 60, 70, 80 year old that still operates closer to the physical body of a kid. I think it should be more normal too, where we're just hanging out here at the gym and I just throw a football to you. And you never played American football, right? So you just, but it doesn't mean I can't throw a football to you. Doesn't mean American football, right? So you're just,

but it doesn't mean I can't throw a football to you. Doesn't mean we can't throw one back and forth. Um, you know, I played base last time I played baseball was like when I was like in little league and I, I played a bunch with Jake when he was growing up. But after that I haven't really done that, but it's not hard to go buy a glove and to have a baseball and to chuck a baseball around. You know, what's... There's a... I can't think of anything negative. I mean, maybe you're playing baseball too close to your house and you break a window or something like that. Maybe you catch one of the nuts or something like that, but...

Beautiful. It's pretty much all upside. It's hand-eye coordination. You are, you know, integrating like all the muscles when you're throwing, so you got to work through your obliques and your hips and your shoulder and all these different things. And I think that when you think about a lot of people that spend a lot of time in the gym, some people, not all people, because some people have either kept things in, there's also natural bodybuilders, which is like kind of almost a different topic because I don't see them as broken down,

but maybe some of them are. But there's a lot of people that are sort of busted up from training. Like they just train and they train the same way often, and they really enjoy it, which makes sense that they want to continue to do it. But I think what we're always talking about here at the Power Project is I'd love it if you just would entertain trying a couple different things. And maybe there's some stuff that you used to like

to do that you haven't done in a long time that you're like kind of nervous about. You're like, I don't even know if I can do that anymore. Or there's something really low level that just isn't going to like cost you anything. It's not that you're not going to hurt yourself on it, but pick up a basketball. There's probably a basketball hoop somewhere in your neighborhood that you can think of at a park or something. There's no just because you're not good at it or just because if you liked it at some point, maybe you should get back to it. Maybe that's your exercise for the day. Don't create the distance on any of these things that you're not an athlete or you're

not athletic. I think that's one of the reasons why people have so much inhibition in picking up anything new because when they see something new, they automatically tell themselves all the reason why they can't do that. I didn't play sports when I was in high school. I didn't play sports when I was a kid. So that's just not my strength. It's not your fucking strength.

But can it be something that you become proficient at? Can it be something that you learn how to play catch with somebody and then now a year later, you can literally throw and catch a ball with a level of coordination that you've never had before? Now you're able to judge this distance. Initially, you try to catch and you look fumbly. That's anything. That's everything.

That's everything we haven't done. But you can easily pick up the capacity, and it doesn't have to take a bunch out of your day. We all have balls lying around. Or if you don't, you could buy one and have it lying around. You usually have people around you. Now just start playing a little catch. Hand-eye coordination, literal coordination,

all these mechanics that you'll build. Easy input for massive output. Another thing that I think could actually be really beneficial for this, for someone who likes to sometimes be alone, is the skill of juggling. I have juggling balls. And I have juggling balls because it's the perfect thing to train the coordination on both sides of my body.

Now I'm also having, because you're not looking directly at the ball, so you're also working proprioception. Initially when I started juggling, I was just always hitting the ground. But now I can do a three ball juggle really well. I can juggle a ball in one hand. And that's just because I practiced it. But this skill, when I get older,

the fact that I built the skill, it's gonna play and pay massive dividends for that short initial learning process. And who knows what it's doing for your brain. I mean, when you're reading and reading comprehension and ideas and stuff, some people will be like, oh, that's kind of dumb, it doesn't work that way. But I think it does, I think it really does.

So even if you try something and you're still not great at it, it doesn't really matter much. If you buy some balls and you're trying to juggle them and you're having a hard time figuring it out, even if you're just throwing great at it, it doesn't really matter much. If you buy some balls and you're trying to juggle them and you're having a hard time figuring it out, I mean, even if you're just throwing one at a time up and you're trying to figure that out, and then maybe you can figure out how to juggle,

like juggle-ish two ball. You kind of need three to actually officially do it, right? But maybe you can just kind of sort of figure out how to even just do two. And over time, maybe you can kind of figure out the rest, but maybe you don't ever figure out the rest, and that's fine too. It's a level up from where you started.

I want to mention this one thing as we continue, because I think we're going to be talking about so many different microdoses that people can add in. Please understand that you're not going to be natural at any of these, because that's another thing. A lot of us don't do something because we don't feel like we're just going to be naturally good at it. Because we assume that everyone is naturally good at it and because they're naturally good, that's why they started. But that's not going

to be you. The thing is, is through deliberate practice, a little bit each day, you can become the person that becomes good. And then everyone says that they're naturally good at it. So just understand that as we get into more of this, please. Yeah, I'm not gifted. Bro. Oh, Mark, I would love for you to explain or talk about how before we got on air, I was comparing a box jump to Jiu-Jitsu on the surface.

If somebody hasn't really experienced Jiu-Jitsu, they'd be like, oh, a box jump's way easier. But in the position that I'm in right now, a box jump is actually kind of a difficult thing. But I went and trained jiu-jitsu this morning. And then Mark was like, well, what about the height? Like, what if you change the height of the box? And like, Oh, so can you go into a little bit about the like, I guess, intensity expectations or over expectations? Yeah, people think they can't power lift. And you certainly can. You can bench squat or deadlift,

but maybe you just need to select the appropriate weight for you for where you're at. Maybe those movements, maybe those exercises are outstanding. Maybe they're amazing. Maybe they're great movements, but maybe for some particular person at this very moment, it might be in their best interest just to use a 25 on each side for whatever the one of the three movements

that it is. When it comes to, you know, saying that you can't do something, you find people say that often. And if you break it down, you go, wait a second, you said you can't run. And then they might be like, well, yeah, you know, I could kind of run ish. And then you're like, well, can you like jog

from here to the other side of the room? And the answer is usually yes. And you say, when's the last time you went for a run? They'll say, oh, I don't know. It was like high school or I was playing college sports and they made us run around the track a couple of times. And I was just always so out of breath and I was always the last person.

And you're like, well, you actually were running. You actually were doing it. So I think whether it's jujitsu or fighting, with most things you can at least try them. There's certain things where it's smart to be like, oh, I'm not sure about that. Like skiing or something like that. I went skiing when I was like 10,

I fell down 7,000 times and hated it from that point and just like wrote it off. So it's understandable if you wanna write some things off here and there, but what we're talking about is what are some things that can maybe potentially help you to live longer and to maybe enjoy life in some ways that, there's a lot of stuff like powerlifting compromised me in some weird ways that I just things I never even thought about

you know when I was younger and This is gone now that I lost a bunch of weight But I used to be like terrified to get on a plane when I was heavier when I was bigger I don't know what that was But I talked to some other bigger dudes and like yeah, man when I was big and heavy I was claustrophobic and probably has to do with your size You're thinking like am I gonna be able to like get out of this particular situation?

Other things like just coordination of like just jumping, something as easy as just jumping off a dock and jumping into some water. As a kid, like I did that all the time. My parents would take me to like lakes and different things. Whatever happened with like gaining size and different things, whatever happened with like gaining size and different things from powerlifting, now my whole body's like shaking, I'm less coordinated, I'm not just going to,

I'm not going to go head first. You know what I mean? Like I'm way more reserved, you know, so it did a lot of weird stuff to me that I never thought of. But if you think about it, some of it makes sense. I weighed 220 pounds for a large portion of my life and then out of nowhere went into the 300s and weighed 330 pounds for a time period. What does that do to your proprioception as you're going up and down in that sort of body weight like that?

So, you know, going for that and having that desire to do everything and put everything else aside and just concentrate on strength, it was fun. But there was a lot of other things that I ended up sort of losing. I lost a lot of other capacities and I wish I knew some of the things that we're teaching now because I could have kept them

and I could have transitioned into stuff potentially faster. Or some people might say, well, maybe you wouldn't have been as good at powerlifting. And that could potentially be true, but I doubt it. Being able to handle the stresses of your day, the stress of exercise, and being able to stick to your nutrition plan

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Again, that's at hostagetape.com slash power project. Links in the description as well as the podcast show notes. You know what I think? You know why I think you're right about doubting it? What you mentioned there about you gaining so much size so quickly actually is such an important piece because most people don't do the thing you just described as they get bigger. As people are getting bigger for bodybuilding and powerlifting, they don't typically train their balance.

They don't typically train these things that they may have had when they played a sport. Like you played football and you did professional wrestling. You were super dynamic. Now you're lifting all the time, and you're always onto your feet, and you're always square. Now you're 300 pounds, you go up on one leg, and you're like, yeah.

Like when you're under a bar, like. Yeah, 100%. But if you just maintained little aspects of that, you would have probably, incrementally, in each of your new body types, you would have been able to maintain it. But it's just because you create a distance. And all we're trying to do, all I'm trying to say is,

no matter what your goal is, whether your goal is power lifting or bodybuilding or whatever it is, just if you already have created a far distance, try to close that in. And if you're in a place where you're going towards those goals and that's still what you want to do, take what we're talking about this episode

and apply some of these things so that you don't create such a large distance between yourself and true dynamic athleticism. And you think about a kid, a kid can get down, you know, up and down off the ground super easily. And you could say, oh, well, they're fucking short, you know? They're low to the ground,

so of course they can get down there. But it doesn't stop at four years old, doesn't stop at five, it doesn't stop at seven, doesn't stop at nine, doesn't stop at 10. It doesn't stop even when a kid, you know, in most situations, I'm sure there's some people that are compromised, but 15, 17, 19, 20, you know, I have a 20 year old, I have a 17 year old,

and they can do all kinds of stuff. Neither one of them are necessarily like freaky when it comes to like mobility or anything like that. But boom, they can pop on the ground, get up off the ground, healthy knees, healthy back, healthy wrists, healthy, you know, healthy everything. You know, like an older person they go to push and then like, you know, and then they got a roll to one side or a void particular way or they might have to swing their leg in a way where you're like, oh, that's, you know, interesting because they had to get like more momentum than the other person or whatever. And so you have to, you have to stay close to these things. You don't lose these things because you get older. You lose these things because you no longer do them. And so you want to try to figure out, you don't necessarily have to get up and down

off the ground, but that's a good start. Just use your couch a little less. Try to make things more inviting. I was in a text message back and forth with Ben Patrick, knees over toes, and he was like, look at this hotel room, like who would wanna, or this hotel gym, he's like, who would wanna train here? It's would want to, or this hotel gym. He's like, who would want to train here? You know, it's like, and it had, it had like decent stuff,

had dumbbells and it had like, you know, a machine and everyone's grateful that there's like equipment, right, to lift on, but he's like, in terms of getting on the ground or doing mobility, not that you couldn't do it anywhere that you want, but there wasn't like a station for it, there's no area for it. The only padding that the floor had was just like a little tiny yoga mat.

So if someone that's in their 60s or 70s that has had distance from not getting up and down off the ground, they're not gonna wanna do it in there. It's not comfortable enough. Can you add one more, I'm gonna add one thing on this because we're gonna get to other capacities, but you mentioned something so good right there and I wanna tell this story.

I had osteoslata when I was 13 13 and then I had a you know a meniscus surgery and left knee and left knee when I was like 24 right partial meniscus removal. So you know I had a lot of pain in my knees because I and I slowly because I had certain pain I stopped doing as many things in deep knee flexion and I always just had this belief at that point that I was always just gonna have bad knees and that they just continued to get worse as I get older I really thought that so in jiu-jitsu I wouldn't really sit deep in Seiza I wasn't able to get into these positions and then I met Ben who and he came here and I was actually looking at a lot of Ben's stuff

before I met him so I started doing a lot of this work that he talked about. And I started to notice that initially it was a bit difficult to get into these deep knee positions. I had to be kind of ginger with it. Dad feels sore the next day. But over time, it's like my knees were feeling better. It's like my knees were getting younger. And now y'all see the things that I do

and the ranges of motion I can do them. I don't have any knee pain, right? But it's only because I actually, I stopped believing that this was gonna be something that I was gonna have to deal with for the rest of my life. I stopped feeling scared of that. I started, I regressed it, like you mentioned,

the box start lower. I regressed it to a point that I literally thought was just so juvenile and so childish. And I was like, I felt kind of like a pussy. But by doing that for a while, I was then able to progress it. And I was like, oh wow,

I've never done this type of stuff with my knees. And now I don't have any knee pain. And I can just maintain it. I know just touch these positions. I don't even have to do crazy workouts for my knees anymore. I just have to touch these positions and make sure they're there. And then if I feel any iffy-ness, I just, you know, I do a little bit of maintenance and I maintain it. That's what we got to do for all of our capacities.

I think what's cool about you is that you are... this stuff's getting tested. You know, you're getting tested. Like you and Andrew are physically going against other people. You know, for me, like I'm running and doing some fun stuff and it's cool, but I don't have to manage or worry about someone else. It's not like I'm running and someone's just going to like hip check me, you know, at the track over in Davis. Although that would, that might feel good kind of to get like hit. I haven't been hit in forever. But you had to do your hips though, like throwing against another runner. Like that guy's got no chance.

Oh yeah. Yeah, he might just bounce off. Bounce off that big old booty. Yeah, that's right. Calm down. Um, you know, when you were saying about jumping, I sort of sidetracked it a little bit and talked about a couple of different things.

But again, just, just think about, you know, you say that you can't, someone says they can't jump. I was just like, well, maybe just jump on like a six inch box and actually watch the best jumpers in the world, like go on Instagram, like check out some of these people that can jump really well. Jumping by the way is amazing.

Like get some jumping in somewhere, somehow, some way. You don't even have to jump onto anything or off of anything. You just jump straight up and down is going to be a good start. But jump onto like a low box. Jump onto a six inch box, an eight inch box, something like that. You'll see a lot of high level jumpers, a lot of high level athletes doing these like tiny jumps. And they're just getting like their rhythm down.

They pogo kind of back and forth. And when you do a jump like that, it actually can be more fun than just jumping on the higher box because the higher box is just like a little bit of a pony trick at some point because now it's a matter of how mobile you are to get your feet back up underneath you. Whereas when you're doing the shorter boxes, you can really work on your plyos and your rhythm

and you can bounce all different ways, you can really work on your plyos and your rhythm and you can bounce all different ways. You can work on rotation. And so it's just, we have to stop telling ourselves that we can't do stuff. We just need to bring things way down a couple notches. When I was at the track today, I met my exact opposite. This guy's flying around the fucking track and I was like, oh my God, this guy's cruising.

Like, something makes sense how fast this guy is going and how far he's going. I'm like, what is he doing? And when he stopped for like, he was doing some intervals, I'm like, what are you doing, like a five minute mile pace? He's like, yeah. I was like, holy shit. I was like, how many of these are you doing?

He's like, I'm doing eight hundreds. I was like, get the fuck out of here. Eww, dude. Yeah. And he's like resting, I don't know, two, three minutes or something like that in between. How big was he? He was, you know, he was a, like he looked like a runner. You know, he looked like a runner, but he was, he said, he was like, oh yeah, I have been running my whole life.

But I just, you know, I just started lifting a couple of years ago because lifting is really important. And so there you have it, right? There's my exact opposite, right? So he goes flying around one more time. I'm working on some like 400s and I'm like, you know what? I'm not gonna get too caught up in it. I'm not gonna try to like race him or anything.

Cause obviously I'm just gonna kill myself if I do that. But I just wanna sort of stay with him. You know, I stayed with him for about three quarters of the way and I was just, I was toast. And I was just like, well, that makes sense. If he came into here, he came into the gym, he would have a hard time keeping up, right? But it's a skillset.

These things are all skillsets. There's nothing really to sweat. When you look at the black belt and you look at the person that has this or that, whether it's a car or a house or whatever it is, you can think to yourself, the position that you're in right now, you can be further ahead at some point.

It might take you some time and you might not get to that same spot. That's not really the point. The point is, is that you can be inspired by that and you can see that and you can say, I bet I could figure out like a similar version or I bet I can, or it might also, it's possible that it's not in the cards

for you to be that way. Like I doubt for myself that I'll run a five minute mile, but I potentially could if that was like my main thing that I just always, that I wanted to do. And I got down to appropriate weight, why me you know if not you then who like why why wouldn't I be able to do it the only thing that would would hold it back would just be my limitations that I put on it. You know I was just gonna say that like kind of almost like the opposite of what you were saying about your knee which was like you you didn't get down into it because you thought it was kind of over.

Even if I did or didn't get into any position that I wasn't used to, I always thought, but it's always going to be there because I used to have it. But then when you don't get there, you don't train the thing, whatever it is, and all of a sudden one day you go for it, like, oh, I got old and it doesn't feel good. Self-fulfilling prophecy.

Whatever that means, yeah. I'm not on the intellectual side, bro, sorry. So what happened was I'm watching my son and if there's a thing, he's jumping on it, over it, through it, on top. He's gonna jump off of it, especially, that's when his thing, he'll jump on the bed and he'll act like he's spidey and he'll'll like do it like, like a 180 off of the bed. It's

pretty cool. And he's landing the, he's sticking the landing and I was like, you know, fuck this. And so like, he thought it was cool. Cause like I jumped on the bed, like I dove on the bed and I was like, Oh, dang, he's to be able to do this for hours and he's, he's already going for hours. So like what we're doing is like, if, um, I don't know, watching like the Niner game or something, I'll lay down a wrestling mat and I'll just do pogo hops with him. I don't do it every time because some days I'm just like dude. I'm kind of smoked right now But at first I was like I cannot believe like it was very disheartening Like I cannot believe I can't do this without my knee hurting like what the like are you serious right now?

Tiny little pogo, like, just... Because, like, you know, the mat has, like, four pieces to it. And you unfold it, and it's, like, wide open, and you have four sections, I should say. And I couldn't get through all four sections without being like, oh, ow, ow, ouchy. And then I was like, but he's having a good old time because he's doing it with me, and then we're, like,

you know, going side to side, having fun with it. And then after we're done, my knee's not hurting anymore. So I was like, hey, let's do two at a time. So I started jumping to the next one. It's like, oh, that kind of hurts a little bit, but it's not too bad. And then like, it started feeling really good. So I started like jumping and then, you know,

kind of like a box jump and bringing my knees up high to just like make it look cool for him. And so he starts doing it too. But again, like I was shocked. I was like, dude, I can't believe I can't do this. But then little by little, I started being able to do it. And then fast forward, I stopped doing it or I get hurt or something. And now I'm kind of back to that spot where I'm like, I don't know if I can do a box jump

right now. You know, so it's like, yeah, if you don't use it, you lose it. But a lot of us, myself included, we're just not even considering the fact that I could lose it, right? It's just like, no, I've always, I can box jump for days or whatever, you know? And then it's like, well, when was the last time you did it?

I don't even remember, but I know I could do it. And then you try it, you're like, oh shit, I guess I'm old now. And then that thing you said happens. Yeah. So man, I'm so happy you talked about all of that. Because when I mentioned self-fulfilling prophecy, what I was mentioning was that, you know, just like you and your back, me and my knee,

we then build this belief that we'll not be able to do it. So then we don't take any actions to lead us in the direction of being able to do it. And then we end up having bad knees and a bad back. I got a bad knee. Just put your hands up. Yeah, you got a bad knee. I can to do it and then we end up having bad knees and a bad back. I got a bad knee. Just put your hands up. Yeah, you got a bad knee. Putting your hands up isn't going to help anything. That's self-fulfilling trust. That's what I meant by self-fulfilling trust.

But the second thing, I'm so happy you brought up the stuff you're doing with your son and the jumping because you see Aurelius and it's so cool. I can't wait to have a kid in the future. I'm not in a rush or anything, but in the future it's's gonna be cool to see that because Aurelius is nice and supple, right? And this sounds creepy, but Aurelius has like, he has these supple tissues, his fascia is bouncy. People talk, and actually I learned this from anatomy trains,

the viscoelastic nature of your connective tissue, your fascia, because initially when you start jumping, just like when I started jumping rope a few years ago, it would hit my knees. Because the way I was jumping was very muscular. I wasn't bouncing off of my Achilles tendon. I was, my tissues weren't supple. It was the force from the ground wasn't able to dissipate

through my body so that I could be efficient. So when I jump, I'd boom, boom, oh back, okay, boom boom, oh knee, right? So I had to take it super slow. But over time, my movement became more efficient because I was working on the whole thing. I was working on trying to be bouncy. I was being, I was being a, I took the level down so I'd just be doing light jumps and I'd try to slowly become poppier and poppier. And then now, because I've been,

we do all these things to take care of our soft tissue. We all do all these movement practices that help holistic movement. Like I use jump rope as my jumping practice. Now I'm bouncing off the ground and it doesn't take any effort. I don't get the pressure in the joints because not just my ability of jumping improved,

but also my soft tissue, my fascia, these things got better over time. And we gotta realize that as we try to build all these different capacities of movement, it's not just the movement capacity that's improving, it's our soft tissue, it's our fascia, it's our connective tissue, our tendons, all those things also have to get stronger.

Like, at least I know for me, you mostly think about things through the lens of muscle. But there's more than just muscle to all of this. Yeah, muscle is great because we know that it can help kind of chew up calories and it can allow you to, you know, raise your metabolic rate. It can also help with maybe your insulin and your glucose and all these different things. It can maybe help prevent diabetes and who knows,

maybe help with other diseases that might be caused from having a messed up metabolism and eating some of the shitty foods that we have today. But there's so much more to it. And the recipes that are out there for hypertrophy, of the shitty foods that we have today. But there's so much more to it. And the recipes that are out there for hypertrophy, the recipes that are out there for strength, I think they're a little overkill because I think they haven't been studied as much with people that are doing multiple things.

So as an example, what's it look like when somebody does rope flow, then the next day they sprint the next day They you know go on a two-mile jog and they lift the next you know what I mean, so This idea that you have to do like 10 sets or this X amount of sets per body part Those are all really good rules and those are things that if you desire to You know build up for bodybuilding or powerlifting. Those are probably recipes that you should probably follow tightly, maybe for a period of time to acquire some of those things.

But I think that you can still gain a ton of muscle by dragging a sled, by doing lat pull downs, by doing some hammer curls, by doing some bench press. Then the next day you hit a sprint. Like I think you could still have a wide range of shit that you do. It doesn't have to be like singular. I mean, look at these athletes.

They have these magnificent physiques. And do you think, you know, these wide receivers and defensive backs and the NFL and just these other athletes that we see around, do you think that they're doing 8 to 12 sets per body part, 2 times per, like they're just... Yeah, and they're doing range partials. They're doing, you know, they're doing... Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Long range partials. Long range partials and just like adopting all these different, you know, scientific

things to their lifting. They're probably just like, yeah, lift, but lifting's probably almost a little bit of an afterthought in some case. Actually, I think what I just said makes absolutely no sense. Long range partials. That's what they're called. Yeah, they're called long range partials, okay.

Yeah, at the end of the long range, it's still partial. But. 21s. Yeah. But Doug, Doug, Doug, okay, I gotta, what you mentioned there is money, because again, okay, I got to, what you mentioned there is money because again, it's good to listen to a Mike Isertel, a Jeff Nippard, these exercise scientists that pay attention to their research. They're talking about being jacked and they're talking about bodybuilding kind of specifically,

right? And if we just take it out of that context a little bit, what happens if you're a grappler? What happens if you do a couple other things? You might not need that same amount of sets and reps to get that same thing. And you might not even want that same thing because maybe you don't wanna be, sometimes the amount of muscle mass

that you're gonna require or acquire, I should say, might not behoove you in your particular sport, right? Hey, hey, hey, behoove. Hey, behoove, hey. Behoove. Pinky up and everything. I'm winning right now, I don't know, like what? I'm winning in something.

But do you want to move like them, right? Because, and again, when I say this, these people are great educators. And we need people like this who are going to figure out the best ways to optimize muscle growth in the shortest period of time. Because when we're thinking about what they're thinking about,

they want everything optimal so you gain every ounce of tissue when you're training and there's nowhere where you're lacking, right? But with that goal, you also take away from every other thing that makes, honestly, helps you become a strong human being. Your ability to run miles, your ability to bend down and tie your shoe without breathing heavy,

your ability to jump. Because when you look at many of these people, who focus purely on this, they are jacked. They are big and they cannot move. Right. And when you're trying to acquire like more and more size, more and more size would require you to be stronger as well. So then you're strong for your body weight.

So it's all a great endeavor and I'm all for it. I still love bodybuilding, I love powerlifting stuff. Same. And it's great to look at someone and be like, fuck, that guy's jacked. Like, it's cool. It's fun. It gives you goals, right?

Like not to just have 12 or 13 inch biceps, but to have your biceps grow over time and to be bigger. But what I'm saying is, I think you can have a little bit of both and you might be happier and it might help with your longevity because I think that sometimes when you just go down a singular path and you're honed in and focused on that,

as happened to me, I'm not saying it's gonna happen to everybody, but it happened to me. We start to lose some of those other capacities. You start to leave some of those behind. And again, I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world. I did what I wanted to do and I honed in and I focused on something for over a decade.

And I squeezed every bit of fucking shit out of it that you possibly can. And it was worth it, you know? But I'm also very lucky. I'm very fortunate that I didn't die. You know, I fell with that big weight. I got seriously injured from that. I was injured for like three or four months,

which is kind of a long time, but it's not really, right? It's like not that bad. For what happened, yeah. Yeah, you're like three or four, but I could have been hurt for years or maybe the rest of my life, I could have been damaged. You could have been paralyzed easily. Easily, or dead.

I wanna pair it one more thing. I keep being like, yeah, yeah, me too, yeah. But I, you know, I was, that happened to me when I was in my early 20s, when I went really down the bodybuilding rabbit hole and down the powerlifting rabbit hole, which is what got me into jujitsu. But like, I look at some videos from back then of me walking,

my spine don't move. I definitely wasn't jumping, I 100% wasn't sprinting, I 100% would never think of running. I, if and if I kept just like seeking, trying to be on more bodybuilding stages or trying to seek a higher powerlifting total, I would not be in the movement position I'm in currently. But luckily, I switched the way I looked at things and Jiu-Jitsu forced me to.

That's why I started the sport. I wasn't doing all the things I do now, but starting the sport was the first step in me trying to be a better mover. And then I realized that there's a lot of other things I need to do for that. Right? But I don't regret it either. But it's just like, you know, just something to think about. So now all I can think of is somebody hearing all this

and being like, yeah, I'm gonna go all in over here on bodybuilding, and then when I'm about 35, I'll start working on the mobility stuff. So without using the answer of patience and time, can somebody go all in on one thing and then kind of unwind themselves later? Like, what's the problem with that? I think for you, you were, you were keeping with some of your mobility or am I wrong?

No, like when I was so okay. Because you got into stretching, but then I don't know if that happened later or. Yeah, it's a long, it's a timeline. Kelly Strett, I discovered in 2013 with fascial fascial not fascial but supple leopard, right? And that was when I was like focused on bodybuilding. So Kelly Stret got me thinking about mobility again That was before I met you guys here So the stretching stuff will start when I was doing jujitsu the smooth panther all that type of stuff I started doing that with jujitsu because I realized how immobile I was when I started jujitsu

I started jujitsu in December of 2015. Going in there, I wasn't super mobile. I was doing already some Kelly Strat stuff and a little bit of mobility, but I still wasn't super mobile. That made me want to stretch and do more mobility because I saw these guys sitting on top of their knees with no type of discomfort. They were bending and twisting in all these ways and I couldn't put my body in those positions without levels of restriction or holding my breath. So that's what got me diving into, you remember Rom Wad? Rom Wad was my, and this, I don't know if it's still there,

but- I think it is. Yeah, okay, so yeah, Rom Wad back then was my inspiration for starting more mobility and flexibility. Kelly Sturette was my inspiration for starting to work on my soft tissue. But before that, yeah, I played soccer, but after I got, after soccer and I was just bodybuilding, I wasn't really doing much mobility stuff. Kelly got me back into it, which is helpful.

When you played soccer, was there, I'd imagine, in the soccer, like, environment that there's some, people are stretching a little bit. They're stretching, there's some people are stretching a little bit. They're stretching, there's dynamic warmups. There is stretching, like actual stretching and dynamic warmups and stuff. Maybe not the hugest focus, but there's at least some, right? You gotta be able to move.

Like you're sprinting on a field back and forth. Like again, every other sport, you know, there is an element of like, you have to move well. Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi, Carlos Puglio, all these, you know, Zlatan, all these soccer players are also amazing movers for their sport. And if they were stiff and rigid, it would be hard for them to be good at what they do. But when the context of powerlifting and bodybuilding, being stiff and rigid is actually a level of strength. You don't want to have to be bendy underneath a thousand pounds.

You don't want to be bendy and letting your spine bend when you have a deadlift. So these are capacities that like you want to have. But the thing is, is I look at it and Andrew, to kind of answer your question, why don't I just, you know, go down that path andvert, is because I think I've realized that if I wanted to go back and do bodybuilding or powerlifting, I still could while maintaining my capacities. So if I wanted to be underneath a barbell and be stiff, I have the ability to go back and forth between both.

I have times where I can be stiff and rigid, and then I can turn into Gumby, right? I think that you can build that. Now, you don't have to do as much Gumby stuff if you're a power lifter and bodybuilder, but it's probably in your best interest to maintain a level of ability to access those movement capacities,

rather than they just disappear, and now you are just this rigid steel pipe that doesn't move with any type of force because when life calls for you to be able to do that, you can't anymore. I think there's obviously tons of differences between Encima and I, but basically there's 15 years between the two of, you know, I'm 15 years older than him. And you know, having said that, there's also like a larger gap in any sort of athleticism that I was doing when I was younger.

So I played football and did a couple of different sports and did pro wrestling for a while. And so I have a much larger period of time where my spine and my body sort of fused itself to the events and to the things that I was doing. And so I almost didn't have an opportunity to go back and unwind this stuff. Look at most of my friends, you know,

I'm not gonna name anybody or call anybody out, but think about a lot of the people that have been on the show, old power lifters and stuff like that, that you can think of that I'm friends with. A lot of them, they're not running. They're not doing the stuff that I'm on the show, old power lifters and stuff like that that you can think of that I'm friends with. A lot of them, they're not running. They're not doing the stuff that I'm not bragging or saying anything in any particular way. Maybe they don't fucking wanna run.

Maybe they think running's stupid and that's fine. But I think that it's hard for them to have the capacity to do so because of the length of time that was in between their athleticism when they were young have the capacity to do so because of the length of time that was in between their athleticism when they were young and sort of where they are now. And so for me, you know, everything sort of tightened up and fused together. And I think that that could ultimately be a limitation

that might be in there for like a long time or it might be there forever. But I know I can continue to get better. I can continue to make changes. And today with no warmup, I just was like, oh, let me just, I have a goal. I wanna do a one minute, you know, 400, which I'm sure if I practiced it and worked on it a bunch,

I could probably figure out a way to do it in that speed, like probably in a few months or something. But I'm like, I just wanna do it before I'm 50. Cause I don't really care about the time factor of it. And so I went and with no warmup, I did like 90 seconds. I'm like, all right, well, with just like a harder effort and a warmup, I might be at 120 or 115 already.

You look at like a 115, 400 meter, there's not a lot of people that can just go and there's a lot of people that we know that are young and can put that effort in. Graham could go do that very easily, barefoot backwards probably. But there's not a lot of people that don't practice that that often that can go and do that.

And so I think for me, I, you know, I'm very fortunate to have the opportunity to go back and unwind this stuff, but, you know, to answer your question, you know, very directly is there might be some people that might put a lot into their lifting and then they might be so damaged when they come out the other side, if they didn't pay attention to these things.

I was fortunate, I was very lucky. Almost everything that I've ever done, I've always tried to go to the best people, the absolute best people. I wanted to box, I lived in New York, I found out about Kevin Rooney, I'm like, I'm going to the Catskills. I learned how to box from Kevin Rooney,

that's the same guy that trained Mike Tyson. Custom Auto obviously trained him, but he was dead years prior to me training there. I didn't train there for a long time, so I never became an amazing boxer, but I've always had the attitude of like, I want to go to the guy. Who's the guy?

Who's the guy that created rope flow? Let's bring that guy in here. Who's the guy that created the BOSU ball? Let's talk to that guy about balance. I always wanted to learn from the best. It's the same reason why I went to Louis Simmons at Westside Barbell. Louis didn't talk a lot about mobility necessarily, but he did talk a lot about keeping in shape.

And I mentioned this many times on the show, not many people listened to him. He was like, oh, you should carry the 60 pound med ball around the building twice. And the built, you know, it was like, it was probably like a, by the time he got back around, it was probably like a quarter mile or something. Like it was huge.

And cold. And cold as fuck, yeah. And then he always talked about like dragging the sled and different things like that. And the mobility stuff did come from Kelly's Tourette. So I had a similar experience. I went to see Kelly at the parking lot of dreams, the gym that he had that wasn't really a gym.

It was just this like outside thing. I wish you guys had a chance to see it. It was like just the most magical, amazing thing that you could ever think of because people were literally there. You know, there's hundreds of people there just for him because he was such a bad-ass. Cold, rainy, people don't know that maybe

about San Francisco, but it's freezing there. And it's the weather's always is like weird. Definitely always very windy and cold. But anyway, I started, Kelly was like, hey, why don't you teach this class? I'm like, crossfit class and I weigh like a thousand pounds. I'm sweating and it's 65 degrees out and I'm purple. And so I start describing like how to squat.

And I said, yeah, it's like, you put your feet down, you lock your feet in and you wanna try to like torque your feet out and drive your hips forward and flex your butt. And then Kelly just came over and gave me a big hug. He's like, Oh my God, I've been talking about this for years. He's like, this is amazing. He's like, he tells the class, he's like, Mark and I never even spoke about this. And I was, you know, telling him how to drive the knees out and all that kind of stuff.

And so he and I just aligned on a lot of things, but then he started teaching me about mobility stuff and opening up the hips. And it's not like I just all of a sudden, boom, picked it up and all of a sudden became really mobile, but I listened to him because as I watched him more, at first I was like, yeah, fuck this guy. Like, this guy doesn't know anything about strength.

Like, what is he talking about? But first of all, he was actually very strong. And then secondly, he said one time in a seminar, he said, I might not know your sport, but I know about human movement. And I'm like, I need to open up my ears and stop being an asshole because I'm going to miss out on the good stuff.

And so I opened up my ears and paid attention and I utilized a lot of his stuff. I mean, there was one competition that I, I did some of his mobility-wide stuff. I did some stuff to open up the hip capsule, did one on the left side, one on the right side, did one for the hamstring, right side, left side, 500 pounds in the bar, squat briefs, set, 700 pounds,

another set, 900 pounds, set, go to the platform, 1,030, boom, 1,080, game over. Damn. And everyone was like, aren't you gonna warm up? And I'm like, I did all the stuff I need to do, I'm good. Wow. If you're someone that's taking supplements or vitamins or anything to help move the needle in terms of your health,

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but you just want to get a checkup, we also have a checkup panel that's made so that you can check up and make sure that everything is moving in the right direction if you've already gotten comprehensive lab work done. This is something super important that I've done for myself. I've had my mom work with Merrick. We've all worked with Merrick. Just to make sure that we're all moving in the right direction and we're not playing guesswork with our body. Andrew, how can they get it? Yes, that's over at MerrickHealth.com slash Power Project. And check out enter promo code Power Project to save 10% off any one of these panels or any Lab on the entire website links in the description as well as the podcast show notes. That's wild

So like again, obviously perspectives change as we start to learn stuff, but I just remember thinking I just want to get jacked I want to get big don't care what it takes and now I Would just I want to be more mobile like I want to be able to get into positions obviously this has a lot to do with jujitsu, but I Want to be able to jump on the floor like dive on the floor with my son and do those things And I really don't care what happens in the gym anymore And so like it's it's weird because I'm 39 now I have two kids but one of them is really young so that perspective is very altered now to where I used to be.

And it's just hard trying to convey that message that you can do both. It's gonna take a little bit more time or focus in two different areas when you want to just take the pre-workout, watch some bodybuilding motivation and go destroy yourself in the gym and then be like, but also make sure

you get your rope flow in or, you know what I mean? Like it's tough, but I make sure you get your rope flow in or, you know what I mean? Like it's tough, but I, I'm not going to say I have regrets because I didn't really do anything bad, you know, to myself, I just neglected that side of things. And now it's funny that like, even though I didn't quite acquire, um, I mean, I'm happy with the physique that I have now, but like's not like I'm any world class anything, but it's like even that, I would definitely have altered everything

just to make sure my body is healthy. Like the tendons and the fashion, all that stuff, just got the attention that it required. And that I know for a fact, would have put me in a position to gain the other stuff that I wanted, right? But because I neglected it, it was just like, I'm gonna focus on the thing that I want.

And now I'm like, no, like, it would have been totally different. You did something really important though, Andrew. I think from the time you're young, you participated in a lot of activity, a lot of sport, a lot of different things, because you have tremendous ability and capacity for athleticism.

I've seen you play basketball, I've seen you chuck a football around, I've seen you like run routes and stuff. you chuck a football around, I've seen you run routes and stuff, and it's not like doing anything super complicated, but you have a finesse within you that's different. Do you remember when we hiked that football here? Yeah, both of us couldn't fucking get it to Steve, and then Andrews was like, boop,

and it ends up in his hands? Yeah. That was pretty cool. No, that's not an easy thing to always understand, because you're like, all right, am I gonna muscle this or am I gonna try to learn this as a skill? And sometimes you can just like, you can kind of just be sweet with something

and make it work really well. But I think you have a good ability with that. And I think what you're talking about, Andrew, and I think what's confusing about all this is we're at this point now where we're like, well, what is strength? Like, what is it to be strong? Like, if you can propel your body through space,

I would say that's pretty strong. And then like how fast you can propel your body through strength, like, it doesn't always have to be like a numbers game. It doesn't have to be that you ran 11 second, 100 meter, and that means you're strong, or you ran a 4.5, 40, and that means you're strong. I think what would mean that you're strong is

if you had any bit of improvement, that means that you're getting stronger. So if you can handle a six inch box to jump on now, and you can work your way into being able to touch the net of a basketball hoop or touch the rim of a basketball hoop. To me, that's a good sign you got stronger. Can you do more pull-ups? You got stronger. People often talk about how frustrated they get that they lose weight and they're like, man, I'm losing so much strength. And it's like, you should not be able to do any pull-ups and now you can do them easy.

You can do walking lunges in the parking lot with weight on your back. You could barely do a walking lunge with your own weight. Period. You're not breathing hard up the stairs. Yeah, right. There's a lot of things that you're gaining and I understand, okay, you're bench pressing the same

and there's a couple of movements that are maybe tougher, but I think what is strong and, you know, can you defend certain positions that are maybe awkward? Can you, like, not everyone has to have a skillset to fight, but it's a little bit embarrassing that, and it's not embarrassing, it's, you know, Josh Settlage has a skillset.

He could put me on my back in seconds, but someone could view me as being very strong. After you see that, then what are your thoughts about strength? Then you're confused, right? Which guy is stronger? You're like, well, a little guy is stronger. Why is he foaming at the mouth?

But you kind of get the idea, right? Like strength can be a very confusing thing. I think what I'm after is I'm after like trying to be strong in a bunch of different areas and trying to be strong through maybe movements that would otherwise be compromising for other people. That's what I'm trying to work my way towards. That's why, you know, certain movements that have like

longer ranges of motion, you know, I still do a lot of shorter range of motion stuff so I can overload and handle like I was doing today on the squats, but I wanna be able to get into deeper positions and be able to maintain them and get out of them easily. I think that's life. I think that's you're laying on the floor, you're watching a movie, you maybe fell asleep down there

and now it's time to get up. Well, how long does it take you to get up off the ground? How long does it take you to get off your couch after you've been sitting there for an hour or two? Is your body all stiff? Is it all like stuck together? Or maybe you've been training your body in a particular way that now you're not as stiff.

Things aren't as tight. You were mentioning waking up in the morning and not having that, just whatever that bullshit is that sits in your lower back sometimes. Yeah, you know, we've talked about this. Like, why do you wake up and you're freaking stiff? Like, why do you always have to work all that stuff out and then maybe a few hours later you're feeling good, right?

I don't wake up feeling stiff anymore. I can literally pop my feet out of bed and I am like, ooh, I'm not like fresh off of a warm up, but I could literally go run right then. I don't have to, you know, gingerly get down on the ground. I feel, and that's something I haven't felt in years. And it's because of a few different practices I've added in, but I'm glad that I'm actually there now. Now there is something, I don't want to spend too much time on this,

but I find it interesting and we're gonna get some more physical capacities because this is what this episode was about. But you mentioned if Josh Settleidge like, you know, took you to the ground that who's a stronger man, right? The Mike Van Wick Jeff Nipper situation. Mike Van Wick is tall, 6'4", strong, tattooed up the wazoo, looks tough. Jeff, 5'5". You know, he has a certain way of speaking that maybe makes someone think he's a nerd or something like that, right?

Jeff makes this response to Mike that's very nice because Mike made this video saying all these science-based nerds, blah, blah, blah. Jeff makes a very just nice response talking back and forth and then this strong man is in a gym throat hits something this this other guy and then throat checks him again and then does something to his cameraman and People are people are looking at that situation defending this dude saying oh Jeff should have kept his distance blah blah blah But who's actually the stronger person in this situation? Who is? Is it the

guy who made a respectful response and didn't come back to try to do anything else? Jeff could have, I mean, I get it. Mike is taller, so Jeff probably didn't want to go up against that. But at the same time, if we're thinking about strength and we're thinking about elements of strength, Mike Van Wick is an extremely weak human being. He couldn't even hold his cool against someone who made an internet video about him. He had to with his nine inch plus stature against Jeff Nippard. He had to resort to physical violence against him. That is a weak, just that is, he's a weak, sensitive, I wouldn't even call him a true man.

A man doesn't do that. A strong man definitely doesn't do that. And there's more to this strength stuff than being big and picking up barbells and being all tatted up. It's more than that. I always thought that that's the, like the antithesis of a man is to have capacities and not use them or not

talk about them only when you have to only when you really have to right like you really have to defend yourself in some way or you really have to say something in some way um but somebody's spouting off and they're bragging about something, like you might feel the need to be like, but you don't need to. It's hard sometimes, like when you're, you know, like just as an off topic example, a little bit like in terms of like business, somebody might be mentioning something and they're, they're maybe bragging a bit, you know, it'd be easy to like check them, right? But then, so I check you on something, right?

But then Elon Musk checks me or Rogan checks me and then Rogan gets checked by Elon. Like you don't want to live in a society where that kind of bullshit is happening all the time. And when it comes to violence, when it comes to physical violence, you don't want to live in a society where physical violence, you don't want to live in a society where, okay, I'm bigger than you. I kicked your ass, but now I got to watch my back because someone's going to get me. You know, like if this was like street stuff, you know,

okay, yeah, you talk shit, you get hit. People said all the time that makes sense. But he was responding to a video that was first said by the other guy. It was said by Mike Van Wick, right? And so some of these things are going to happen, but imagine being Mike Van Wick and having to like, you know, look up, we don't, you know, hopefully there's no response. Hopefully that's just the end of it. Luckily no one, you know, got hurt or whatever. I

do think that people, I think if there's anything to learn from that particular thing, I think what I learned, I don't know Mike Van Wick, so I'm not gonna even really comment on that too much, but I think what I learned is that you have to be really cautious, you should be cautious about the things that you say about certain people because you don't know, You don't always know. You don't always know and who knows about that story

or if there's anything more to it than just, you know, what we saw on the internet. I have no idea. There's probably multiple sides to the story. But in any case, you know, you don't want to live in a world where, you know, people are like attacking each other. It's just not great.

And it looks gross and it's not good for... I mean, I guess for the fitness community, there'll be a lot of clicks. A lot of clicks. Yeah. There'll be a lot of people, you know, chiming in and looking at it, but... I think sometimes when you can't explain why something happened quickly, then it's confusing and it means that it's kind of dumb.

So, if somebody hits somebody and someone's like, yeah, that guy fucked the guy's wife, you're like, oh. Right? Like that's quick. You're like, okay, all right. Like, oh, maybe it would have been good if you got one more. Yeah. And I mean, so yes, I think it's cool that,

you know, somebody in the fitness world, and especially like the YouTube fitness realm or whatever, has a piece on them on TMZ. Like that's pretty cool. Like I was like, oh shit, that's actually hitting some bigger outlets. Yeah. But what would have happened if Jeff Nippard wasn't,

I don't know how tall he is, but what if he was like 6'6"? Would that have still... Yeah, I just don't think if that was Bradley Martin, I don't think we got the same thing. No. People brought up situations where like people... Somebody wanted to fight him, but they were sizable,

and he chose not to. But it's one of those things where it's like... There's no... There's really never a reason to have to resort to physical violence like that. And that's just bully behavior. There's a lot of people that, you know, were defending him. And I do find it shocking, because like, why are you defending? Like, people are like, ah, this is why, you know, people are pussy now, because like, you can't just say stuff on the internet

and expect not to like, in my neighborhood, this would be nothing. It's like, your neighborhood isn't a healthy place to be. Do you not realize that that wasn't a great place to grow up? Like, bro, you have PTSD. That's not good. You know, so I don't want to spend too much time on it, but I just like meant there's, there's, there's a lot of, like you mentioned, there's many layers of strength outside of just being barbell strong.

And I think one level of strength is, is to know when to appropriately use it, you know? And some with strength, which you guys see all the time in jiu-jitsu, it's like, it's actually kind of cool because you can back way off your strength and then all of a sudden you can explode into something. And the other guy go, shit, I didn't know the guy was going to be able to do that, right? It's kind of, that happens a lot in football and stuff too, a lot of, there's a lot of technique to like blocking somebody. And you can sort of like play after play,

you can sort of lull the guy to sleep and then you can just knock the shit out of him because you went on a certain angle or you hit him a certain way. You're gonna be able to like, you know, kind of almost prep them for that by intentionally being like weaker on some of the other things.

But a couple of other things I just have written, and we can still openly talk about a bunch of this stuff, but I just have a couple things written out when it comes to, you know, longevity and just being vibrant and all these different things, hand-eye coordination, your balance. Let's not forget about your mental capacity. So it's like, there's probably like,

crosswords and there's probably like writing. Like I had to fill something out at the dentist the other day and I was like, oh, this is bad. So I had to get another sheet. I was like, I wrote something that's just not even legible. You know, you can't even. You can't even to me. Yeah, I was like, yeah, yeah.

I could barely tell what I wrote, right? So I had to get another one. So continue writing, you know, of some capacity, like at least on the show, I guess I write some notes here, but I gotta get back to doing, I was journaling a lot when I was younger and I got too much distance from that. But even that, hand-eye

coordination. And it's good for your eyes. It's really good for your eyes, especially to like read. You got things like balance. We hear a lot about grip. Mark, stop at the balance. I want to play a video that you sent Andrew and I. Andrew, this is perfect for what you just mentioned. I also have that video that Huberman ended up posting as well of the 99 year old guy running around in San Francisco like boxing, shadow boxing. Oh yeah.

That was pretty sick. That's on either my thing is always buried because I post so many things, but you can also check it out on Andrew Huberman's thing. Do you see it, Andrew? I sees it. Okay. Does it need audio?

I don't know if it needs audio, but Mark, I think you can explain this one pretty well, how cool this was in action. Look, you see how like you just mentioned getting checked, right, and look at like this guy's smaller than those guys and look how he just. getting checked, right? And look at, like, this guy's smaller than those guys. And look how he just...

Yeah, this is one of Ian Danni's guys that he trains. And he's just, like, slicing through people, and then they're showing video of the guy working and doing some balance movement, basically with, like, almost like a barbell with weights hanging off the side of it. Holy shit. That hit, and he just kept it, this balance was...

And then you see the things he does with Ian Danni on that balance thing. It's why we're talking about this. And people want to try to think that like some of this balance stuff is kind of nonsense to do in the gym. They're like, just, you know, make yourself more stable by making yourself stronger. Which can work, you know, it can for sure. Like that can help, but it also helps. Like, you know, when you think about a game like football, or even, it doesn't really matter actually, the sport.

Any sport that's like high intensity in any sport that you want to do on another level, you have to think about ways of like pantomiming that sport. You have to think of a way to like fake play the sport. Pantomiming? I think that's a word. You did another one. I was like, holy shit.

I might've made it up. No, it's a real word. It's like a- It's definitely a real word. Yeah, it's a real, I don't know. It does matter. You just made it. I don't know if I said it the right way.

Mimic the sport, we'll say. Yeah, you gotta, you have to find ways to mimic the sport, but mimic it in a safer way. So the stuff that you're doing with rope flow is really smart. The stuff that they're doing in these videos, and these drills that they're doing, or you see sprinters all the time. I've seen just video after video of these sprinters doing

these like high squats or high single leg squats or squats where they're holding on to something and they're doing like, but they're all partial range squats where they're holding on to something and they're doing like, but they're all partial range and they're like, this guy used 600 pounds and then everyone in the comments like, he's not squatting full range, but he's doing something to overload his body in a very particular way for a very particular result. Yeah. So I wasn't trying to cut you off.

Just when you said that, I was like, I had to play this video, but you were mentioning the other capacities. You've mentioned balance, coordination, hand-eye coordination. Oh yeah, and I was also just saying like, I lost track for a second, but it's important that you figure out ways to, you gotta find mimickers of what it is you're doing.

You can't just go and sprint all the time. You can't just go and do the thing all the time. You can't just play five on five basketball. Why do they sometimes play three on three or why do they practice and they do all these drills, right? And why do they have drills in jujitsu and drills in wrestling and drills in football? There's drills everywhere because you,

if you could just play the game and get better, that's what they would do. And you can, you can kind of play the game, but in a sport like football, you're just gonna get hurt. If you just keep playing the game and playing the game, like you're not gonna have a roster to be able to even play. And so some sports aren't like that.

You can play them at higher intensities, but even baseball, baseball players will swing, they'll swing different bats, they'll train in the gym, they'll get off the field and do other things. They will throw different objects, they'll throw footballs, they'll throw softballs, they'll throw wiffle balls, they'll throw tennis balls, like they do all this stuff. It's a mimicker of what they're asked to do,

but it changes, it changes the volume. It's a volume shift, because the intensity, as we know with lifting, that that volume cannot be sky high all the time. Let me add on to that, man. So I think there's an aspect of what we're talking about here is another aspect of play, because play is super important. You know, when I, for example,

I'm gonna mention the rope, when I put the rope in my mom's hand for the first time, she felt like she was playing, and she hasn't played in forever. That for me was just it for her, because I'm like first time, she felt like she was playing, and she hasn't played in forever. That for me was just it for her, because I'm like, ooh, she feels like she's playing now. That in and of itself is gonna make you feel younger. Andrew's always referenced, TZ's referenced that study

where people were put in a situation, like they had different pictures from when they were younger, all these things from your youth, and then they started to feel younger, right? But then I look at something too, that's a mimicker of jujitsu. Rope flow is helpful for that. It gets all the feel younger, right? But then I look at something too, that's a mimicker of jujitsu. Rope flow is helpful for that. It gets all the rotational movements, right?

But then there's this push hands thing that David Weck showed us. David Weck, by the way, guys, I mean, I've mentioned it before, he invented rope flow, right? But David came and he worked with us a few years back and he also had us do something called push hands for the first time. And push hands is something that Bruce Lee did every day.

I've been learning a lot about Bruce Lee. I know you've loved Bruce Lee. And push hands is something that Bruce Lee did every day. I've been learning a lot about Bruce Lee. I know you've loved Bruce Lee. And as you said, as you've talked about Bruce Lee, I'm like, damn, that was after my generation. But I need to learn about this guy. He did push hands every single day. And Bruce Lee was an amazing fighter, right? But he also realized that fighting every single day

is gonna have wear and tear on your body. So this right here, you know, you see David pushing me back, right? This was the start. He was, he was winning when we were doing that. He was winning this battle of physical, you know, this, this physical battle where the goal is just to make the opponent lose their base, which David had just had to replace hip 38 days ago. He's 50 something years old.

I'm 240 something pounds in my physical prime. And this guy's managing to make me off balance. So I realized through this that like push hands is another mimicker. It's another thing that on the days that I don't, I can't do jujitsu, I can't grapple. I can do push hands, but guess what? Even on the days I do jujitsu, on the days I grapple,

I can still do push hands and get that weight shift, how to get your opponent off base, how to find your opponent's setter. There's levels, but it doesn't beat the body up. And it's, anybody can do this, not even martial artists. There are some comments where this guy mentioned he does it with his kids. Anybody can do that.

You know? How do you pull guard though? Is it a little bit like people doing like underhooks? Like you see the wrestlers doing underhooks and they allow each other to get them, they go back and forth. Is it a little bit like that? You know, anybody who like does Tai Chi, because I'm not a Tai Chi guy, right? I'm not a push hands guy.

But I know that some people have specific rules. The game of which we were playing here was like, okay, you know what? We don't grab with our hands. The goal is just to whoever gets off of their balance, so if they take a step, they lose. And yeah, if you get an underhook and you manipulate your opponent's weight, cool, but you can't grab.

So now it's just manipulating of weight, and you're also manipulating your upper body, and you're trying to find the moment where you can get your opponent off base without having to use an excessive amount of force, right? So again, this is something you can create your own rules. You could probably even create a rule where you can't underhook, right? Because that's probably not classical push hands.

But as a grappler, yeah, you could underhook, you know? But it's, there's, I'm going to be able to build so much skill from this thing that doesn't beat my body up like Jiu-Jitsu does, while still being able to progress at Jiu-Jitsu, which just helps my longevity. I can do this at 90 years old, bro. That's what's exciting about it. And this thing, this right here, freaking hell, good people that do Tai Chi,

people like Bruce Lee, these people have known about this for centuries. It's thousands of years old, you know? And it's play, it's also play. I think other mimickers of jujitsu or other mimickers of grappling could be anything to do with your hands. I know you do the rice bucket deal.

Any sort of grip work that you're gonna do, hanging, obviously like rows and all those different things we do in the gym, they can help promote your grip, but they're not super direct. So you may wanna do like farmer's carries and some of these other things. I found even just hanging from a bar is great

just for stretching along with, you know, it sometimes feels like it's hard for me anyway to like disassociate my hips and my back from my body. They feel like they're sorta like stuck or jammed together. And when I hang off a bar, it feels like it helps that to kind of open up a little bit. And then obviously it helps a ton with the shoulders. If something like that is hard, again, scale it back.

You might think, oh man, it might be painful to hang off a bar, or I'm not sure, put a band underneath you. Put a band, have a band go across the rack, or figure out a way you can hang the band from the bar that you're hanging from as well. I like to put it across though in the J hooks and then you could hang from it and then you could hang one arm at a time. Which feels really good because then you can really disassociate and you'll get a pec stretch,

you'll get a pec through the shoulder, through the bicep. All those things I think are really valuable. And there's a lot of little things you can sort of do throughout the day. I mentioned getting on the floor. We had Cador, we had the Gota guys on, we've had a couple other people reference the floor. The floor is like where you rest.

And if you are simply to, let's just say, not get rid of your couch or something or not get rid of the chairs that you have, but simply just spend 25% of your time on the ground, just commit to it. And again, put down something soft if you need it at first, there's no reason for you to be in like tons of pain, but the ground is gonna be something

that will sort of help your mobility, help your recovery in a lot of ways, because at first you'll be on the ground and it will hurt and it will suck, but over time you'll be on the ground and it will hurt and it will suck. But over time, you'll be able to adapt to it. And if it doesn't hurt for now, it's still a form of active release in some way, because it's kind of digging in to your butt cheek

or your hip, whichever side you're on. And then it keeps you moving as well, right? Or as opposed to like you're on the couch, you're sort of stuck in one position, you probably won't move for 45 minutes or an hour. If you're on the ground, you're sort of stuck in one position, you probably won't move for 45 minutes or an hour. If you're on the ground, you're probably gonna shift and move around a bunch. Yeah, and again, so just going back to my son

and his abilities right now. So like he will get onto this planter box, which isn't terribly high, but he jumps off of it barefoot onto cement and I can hear the thunk, I can hear everything, he's just nonstop, just doing it over and over and over and I'm just like, dude, I can't the thunk, I can hear everything, just nonstop, just doing it over and over and over. And I'm just like, dude, I can't do that. That's crazy.

And I'm sure at one point I probably could. You could, absolutely. And then so that's where I started like, I need to look at what he's doing and figure out how I can start doing that stuff too. Because it was there once, and I can probably work on getting it back. Yeah, I think it's really cool. I think one...

It's the whole Roger Bannister thing, the four minute mile. Like you see it, you know it's possible people start doing it. And I think that's what's going on with you, except you don't have... Most parents, I would assume, see their kids and they're like, they can only do that because they're kids. They don't think about reverse engineering the skill of their children. And you're thinking about every little thing

Aurelius is doing, you see it's possible, and you've already done things to inch yourself back. You're already jumping, you're already doing these things, so let's just do it with every other thing too. While also making sure Aurelius doesn't lose what he's got, right? That's the ultimate goal. That's why our couches are really jacked up.

He just jumps nonstop. He jumps on them, and then he jumps on and off them. And I'm not telling him no, because I'm like, no, just keep getting fucked up, dude. It's funny when he falls. And he just gets right back up. Nothing happened. I think I've heard it's hard to know exactly what's true,

especially getting information from Instagram, but I compared weightlifting with something else. I can't remember what the other one was and gymnastics. And they said that gymnastics lent itself to being one of the best in terms of bone density because of the impact. And then the guy was like, well, what do we do with this information

since not a lot of people can do gymnastics to that degree that was studied because they were testing some of these younger athletes. And he was like, well, they just found that like with jumping, you're gonna get a lot of bone density from that. And for some people, they can't even necessarily jump. And so what they also found was some isometric contraction.

So just going to a gym, it's not going to have the same impact. It's not going to have the same impact as jumping or gymnastics, obviously. But even some isometrics while you're training, just doing maybe a couple reps of leg extension or leg press. And then you just try to hold it,, you know, doing like maybe a couple reps of leg extension and then you just or leg press and then you just try to hold it and you squeeze and you just flex your muscles as hard as possible. They were showing that even had a good result and the less trained that someone is probably the more profound result it will have, especially in terms of their, their muscularity and more

so than their bone density. To add on to that part about the bone density thing. Yes, gymnastics is super high. An interesting thing is like, there's MMA, because I think I know what you're talking about. I saw a chart similar. The MMA was one of the things at the top. Football was one of the things at the top.

Resistance training was one of the third things. On the bottom was swimming, running as in distance running. And it made sense because when runners are doing a lot of that running, even though you'd think that they're pounding the pavement and that helps their bone density, they're also extremely efficient and extremely light, and they're running in a way that doesn't really cause a lot of impact to their joints. So unlike someone who's an inefficient runner who might actually be getting some benefits there,

runners get less benefits the more they do. They're probably also calorically restricted, which doesn't help them build more bone, right? Swimmers don't have any gravity. They're in a pool, zero gravity, but it's great for the cardiovascular system. And so what can we take from like these sports like football and MMA? It's all, there's a few things. There's obviously the impact, right? The impact of getting struck in football and May getting struck. And I've heard from Peter Atiyah's podcast,

where it's like there's also a high bone density benefit from Ju-Brizzly and Jiu-Jitsu. There's aspects of getting struck, but then there's also aspects of the skeleton being pulled, and then pressure from a different opponent being put on you, where you now have to deal with that pressure. Right? So, one thing that people can do is, again, like this doesn't have to deal with that pressure, right? So one thing that people can do is again, like this doesn't have to be all your training, but can you learn to like hit a bag?

Like I have a bag at home and you gotta go to a place, get your punching form checked or whatever. But since I learned David Weck's core fist every single night in my garage, not every single night, there's a few nights I take off because I can feel some soreness in my wrist and stuff but as time has been going by I can strike it longer. I create the core fist right and I can legit just like strike that bag over and over and over and my fists are getting stronger. I

legit can feel the shockwave of the bag going up my body so I can feel that and because of that striking my bone density is also going to be... I'm getting a different level of actually bone density improvement since this isn't something I did. So it's one of those things that again, it's fun. Anybody can get themselves a bob, I think. Yeah. Yeah.

You have a bob? Yep. You know, I have like a, I have one that I bought like a long time ago and I need to get a heavier one because this thing is like a kid's one and you can just like bop it over. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I need to get a better one.

But I mean, you know, you could make all this stuff pretty simple, you know, it doesn't have to be difficult, it doesn't have to be hard. When it comes to jumping, you can even get like a rebound or yeah, there's the bob thing, punch the hell out of that thing. And rebounders have some different benefits, right? Yeah, they do. Yeah, they're supposed to have some benefit of bone density,

which you wouldn't really think because it's kind of a soft landing. But you are, for some people, you have to look at, we're so deep into the weeds, that we've been training forever. So someone that has, just doesn't have a lot of years under their belt with training can get stimulus from all kinds of stuff.

And really it's about finding something that you'll enjoy. But the rebounder, oddly enough, for somebody that's maybe hasn't jumped in a while, it's gonna freak them out. They're gonna get on there and be like, whoa. So they even make them with, they have side things if you wanna buy one that has something so you can be more cautious.

So there's just so many opportunities to figure out a lot of what we talked about today. Even like your gait is a huge thing, the way that you walk. This is something you can practice. This is something you can kind of work on as you're walking. Maybe it's hard, maybe you have blind spots. Maybe you don't really know that you're walking tight or walking oddly, but just try to play with it. mess around with it and feel what it's like to walk

in some different ways. Feel what it's like. Like how do you make yourself feel lighter? You know, try pointing your feet straight. Try pointing your feet in, try pointing your feet out, mess around with different positions. Try to have the head over foot position that David Weck talks about and just sort of mess around. Is it better? Is it worse?

Does it feel good? Does it feel bad? Try to lower one shoulder and raise the other shoulder, like side bend as you walk, and just move your arms differently. Some people don't really move their arms much when they walk, and that could kind of not only make you feel stiff, but make every step that you're taking.

David Weck says every step stronger. Unfortunately for a lot of people, it's like every step weaker because every step they take is sort of a dysfunctional step. And then on top of that, they'll be fired up. They'll go to the gym and they'll try to exercise and they're taking even further steps that are probably setting them back even worse

because their form, their technique, their backs out of alignment and so on. So you can work on all this stuff just even throughout the day and nasal breathing, something we talk about all the time on the show. That is a simple practice that can be sort of implemented anywhere. If it feels too much to do it when you're jogging

or it feels too much to do it when you're doing a sport, just try to practice it more when you're jogging or feels too much to do it when you're doing a sport, just try to practice it more when you're walking. Try to practice it more when you're reading a text message. You might be surprised, maybe you hold your breath. Maybe you grunt or maybe you start breathing differently, even just from watching TV because something sparked you up, it was political or whatever made you frustrated or mad.

So there's so many ways to incorporate all these things into your day. And hopefully you guys have found what we talked about here today. Hopefully you found it very useful. Hopefully you start to incorporate it and use it and just let us know what you thought. Let us know what you think.

Strength is never a weakness. Weakness is never strength. Catch you guys later. Bye. It smells so bad in here. It's the fish. It's the fish. I definitely smell the fish.